LIFE OF WILSON. 
Ixxxiii 
covers the stalls of this market-place, in the metropolis of the fertile country 
of Kentucky.* 
The horses of Kentucky are the hardiest in the worlJ, not so much by 
nature as by education and habit. From the commencement of their existence 
they are habituated to every extreme of starvation and gluttony, idleness and 
excessive fatigue. In summer they fare sumptuously every day. In winter, 
when not a blade of grass is to be seen, and when the cows have deprived 
them of the very bark and buds of every fallen tree, they are ridden into 
town, fifteen or twenty miles, through roads arid sloughs that would become 
the graves of any common animal, with a fury and celerity incomprehensible 
by you folks on the other side of the Alleghany. They are there fastened to 
the posts on the sides of the streets, and around the public square, where 
* This letter, it should seem, gave offence to some of the inhabitants of Lexington ; and 
a gentleman residing in tliat town, solicitous about its reputation, undertook, in a letter to 
the editor of the Port Folio, to vindicate it from strictures which he plainly insinuated 
were tiie offspring of ignorance, and unsupported by fact. 
After a feeble attempt at sarcasm and irony, the letter-writer thus proceeds: " I have 
too great a respect for Mr. Wilson, as your friend, not to believe he had in mind some 
other market-house than that of Lexington, when he speaks of it as ' unpaved and un- 
finished !' But the people of Lexington would be gratified to learn what your ornitho- 
logist means by ' skinned squirrels cut itp into quarters,' which curious anatomical prepa- 
rations he enumerates among the articles he saw in the Lexington market. Does Mr. 
Wilson mean lo joke upon us ? If this is wit we must confess that, however abundant our 
country may be in good substantial matter-of-fact salt, the attic tart is unknown among us. 
" I liopo, however, soon to see this gentleman's American Ornithology. Its elegance 
of execution, and descriptive propriety, may assuage tlie little pique we have taken from 
the author." 
The editor of the Port Folio having transmitted tliis letter to Wilson, previous to send- 
ing it to press, it was returned with the following note : 
" To THE Editor op the Port Folio. 
" Bartrum's Gardens, July 16, 1811. 
"Dear Sir. 
"No man can have a more respectful opinion of the people of Kentucky, particularly 
those of Lexington, than myself ; because I have traversed nearly the whole extent of their 
country, and witnessed the effects of their bravery, their active industry, and daring spirit 
for enterprise. But tliey would be gods, and not men, were they faultless. 
" I am sorry that truth will not permit nie to retract, as mere jokes, the few disagreeable 
things alluded to. I certainly had no other market-place in view, than that of Lexington, 
in the passage above mentioned. As to the eircunistance of ' skinned squirrels, cut up 
into gi!arZe!'s, ' which seems to have excited so much sensibility, I candidly acknowledge 
myself to have been incorrect in that statement, and I o\ve an apology for the same. On 
referring to my notes taken at the time, I find the word '-haloes,' not quarters ; that is, 
those ' curious anatomical preparations' (skinned squirrels) were brought to market in 
the foi m of a saddle of venison ; not in that of a leg or shoulder of mutton. 
" With this correction, I beg leave to assure your very sensible correspondent, that the 
thing itself was no joke, nor meant for one ; but, like all the rest of the particulars of that 
sketch, ' good substantial matter of fact.' 
" If these explanations, or the perusal of my Amei'ican Ornithology, should assuage 
the "little pique' in the minds of the good people of Lexington, it will be no less honor- 
able to tlicir own good sense, than agreeable to your humble servant," &c. Port Folio 
for Auyust, 1811. 
